Army Research selects NetBase intelligent search platform

The Army Research Lab has selected advanced search technology from NetBase to better equip researchers to address warfighters’ requests for new technology, tools and gear.

ARL’s scientists and engineers will use NetBase’s Content Intelligence platform for situational awareness to speed up the decision-making process, said Jens Tellefsen, vice president of marketing and product strategy.

The intelligent search platform is designed to harness additional value and insight from any content source, including the Internet and enterprise content. The platform can search over 8 billion Web resources, structured and unstructured data, books, passages and abstracts across diverse domains and content types, Tellefsen said.

Organizations are spending $122.5 billion per year on research subscriptions and about 99 percent of knowledge workers use the Internet each day to search for information, yet business research remains highly inefficient, Tellefsen said, citing a 2007 survey of knowledge workers by Outsell Inc.

Instead of doing Google-type searches, researchers using NetBase can do one quick query, get answers categorized, produce a report, and take immediate action to develop new products or approaches to solving problems — all in real time, Tellefsen said.

The platform uses deep linguistic parsing to read and understand every sentence inside billions of documents, which helps quickly deliver relevant answers and insights.

For example, the platform can aid researchers in finding innovators or experts in a field who might be working on new products or tools to help warfighters, such as special plating on the bottom of vehicles that deflect mines or the development of special purpose tools such as waterproof scanners for special operations commanders, NetBase officials said.

NetBase officials also announced that Rita Joseph has joined the company as its vice president of federal operations. In this new role, Joseph will work closely with NetBase's newest adviser, retired Air Force Major Gen. George Norwood, to further the adoption of NetBase Content Intelligence in the federal sector. Joseph spent several years as Autonomy's public sector vice president.